M
ost would agree a spectacular setting enhances a home-building project’s success, especially if it involves approximately 500 acres on a wooded bluff in Texas Hill Country with views of the Nueces River valley and Goat Mountain. Add to that a grove of mature oaks, ample outcroppings of Texas sage, abundant wildlife and a migratory fly zone any birder would envy, and the raw natural beauty alone of one such locale is nirvana. But when it came to designing a residence here for an empty-nester couple with previous ties to the area’s aptly named Goat Mountain Ranch, the team at Lake Flato Architects—which included partner Karla Greer and associate Rebecca Bruce Comeaux, along with principal Ted Flato and project architect Trey Rabke—wanted to do more than just frame the best views and determine the optimal solar orientation; they also wanted to make
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a strong connection to the rugged surroundings. “The wife’s father purchased the property in the early 1980s, and the couple started making regular trips there shortly thereafter,” Greer says. “Because they were so closely aligned with the land, we wanted to figure out how to draw both local and personal history into the project.” It was those ideals that first attracted the couple to the Lake Flato team, whose reputation for crafting homes that connect with the environment preceded them. “We saw a house they did in a magazine and liked the attention to detail, their green philosophy and the fact that their buildings fit with the surroundings,” the wife says. “When we found out they were in San Antonio, I thought it must be fate.” In accordance with the firm’s philosophy, and as a way to relate to the region, the architects used the same stone that German immigrants had mined to build their domiciles nearby in the 1800s. After all, Hill Country is limestone territory and, according to Greer, many of its early homes featured
Above: The team at Lake Flato Architects designed this Hill Country home with a chopped Sisterdale limestone veneer from A.J. Brauer Stone. T. Becker Masonry Construction fabricated the “German smear” mortar joints, while the copper roof is by Heyco. Landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck introduced mostly native, drought-tolerant plantings, including Damianita daisy. Opposite: The same limestone used on the exterior flows into the living room, where an inherited portrait of the wife’s mother hangs above an antique mahogany console purchased at an estate sale.
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